The Canadian Football League is material not often covered here at Midwest Sports Fans.

I watch a little of it on my mobile device, and even listened to a couple radio broadcasts this year. Personally I enjoy the occasional 129-yard return of a missed field goal (a product of the 110-yard field, goalposts on the goal line, and 20-yard end zone) or the potential volley of ‘return kicks’ at the end of a tie game (when kicker misses FG but return man doesn’t want to concede a game-losing one-point rouge).

It’s a brand of game with a different twist, complete with three downs v. four, 12 men on each side, and even a ‘three-minute warning’, with some of the rules derived form the Canadian game’s rugby roots.

But who can argue with a league that has had both a Roughriders (one word) and Rough Riders (two words), not to mention both ‘Lions’ and ‘Tiger-Cats’ (never mind that those two words are redundant). And it took forever to finally figure out what an Argonaut (a sailor) or an Alouette (French pronunciation for Lark) was supposed to be.

The CFL has had memorable players, Pinball Clemons, Matt Dunnigan, and Damon Allen (I think Marcus’ bro played something like 40 years) quickly come to mind. There were also others such as Warren Moon (wrongfully shunned from NFL for years), Doug Flutie and more recently Cameron Wake who have wound up eventually making the jump to the big show down in the states. And then there were highly-drafted NFL players such as Bruce Clark and Rocket Ismail who defected to Canada after being offered big bucks. And then there was Nelson Skalbania, who once signed Vince Ferragamo and several other established NFL players in an effort of building a powerhouse team, with disastrous results.

But mostly players are in the CFL for a reason. A good percentage of players are native Canadians, as teams have quotas limiting the number of ‘imports’ that can be on a team. Many of the import players are good, just not quite good enough to stick in the NFL. In a way the CFL is very much on the same talent level as Arena Football.

The CFL makes some mainstream sports news this time of the year as the Grey Cup final is being held – at least Chris Berman will spend 90 seconds showing the highlights (long before becoming the ‘Worldwide Leader’, CFL games were a staple of early ESPN programming). It’s somewhat of a happening. Ken Yon Rambo said in an interview a couple years back that playing for the CFL Championship was as big as any contest he played while at Ohio State. With all due respect, the spring game at the Horseshoe rivals the Grey Cup, winners get steak, losers get beans – do the stakes get any higher than that??

But with no offence (DON’T CORRECT MY CANADIAN SPELLING JEROD!!!) to the matchup between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and B.C. Lions, the highlight of the week came at a luncheon with an incident between former QB Joe Kapp and Angelo ‘King Kong’ Mosca, here is the complete eight minute clip, with speech by Kapp following after the fracas.

As someone once said, don’t bother trying to bring someone flowers as a peace offering, especially when the other party is wielding a cane, although Kapp responded with a nice right cross before the parties were separated.

Joe Kapp is known to most football historians, the only QB to appear in the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl, and Grey Cup. He also had a memorable run as head coach at the University of California during the 1980′s, which eventually crashed after a meltdown during a post-game presser in which he unzipped his pants in front of the media. During his tenure Kapp also vowed not to touch his favorite Tequila until his alma mater made the Rose Bowl. His abstention to 1800 has now reached 30 years.

Angelo Mosca was a player who was basically bypassed by the NFL but then had a stellar career for 15 years in Canada before settling into that other profession for those who don’t quite make it in the NFL – professional wrestling. Mosca wound up settling in the Hamilton, Ontario area after his playing days was over.

The Kapp/Mosca bad blood stems from an incident during a Grey Cup played long ago, way back in late-November 1963, eight days after the Kennedy Assassination. It’s said the momentum of that game turned in the favor of the Hamilton Ti-Cats after Mosca went Ndamukong Suh knocking the B.C. Lions star running back out of the game with a late hit out of bounds.

So 48 years later Kapp tries to play nice, only to get a ‘up your ass’ and eventually a cane to the face.

Considering Mosca’s career in the square circle and Kapp’s brief career as a bit actor (appeared in shows such as Emergency! and Adam 12, which were essentially the same programs), the classic question is whether this was either a work or shoot.

‘Work or Shoot’ is a phrase used in the wrestling industry when speculating whether an incident that occurs during an event was something done within the script (‘Work’) or not (‘Shoot’).

Can’t say for sure, but that cane shot seemed a little harder than on TV wrestling, and Kapp sure held his ground in retaliation.

A couple guys approaching their mid-70′s could had ended very bad, and the actions of the two shouldn’t be condoned too much, but at least the CFL gets a little publicity over this.

If the NFL ever invites Joe Kapp for a reunion of past Super Bowl quarterbacks, hopefully they won’t have him in the same room as one of the Super Bowl IV Kansas City Chiefs front-seven…